Songs with Meaning

These two songs have become very special to me recently:

Be Still My Soul

Be still, my soul: the Lord is on thy side.
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain.
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In every change, He faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul: thy best, thy heavenly Friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

Be still, my soul: thy God doth undertake
To guide the future, as He has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul: the waves and winds still know
His voice Who ruled them while He dwelt below.

Day by Day

Day by day, and with each passing moment,
Strength I find, to meet my trials here;
Trusting in my Father’s wise bestowment,
I’ve no cause for worry or for fear.
He Whose heart is kind beyond all measure
Gives unto each day what He deems best—
Lovingly, its part of pain and pleasure,
Mingling toil with peace and rest.

Every day, the Lord Himself is near me
With a special mercy for each hour;
All my cares He fain would bear, and cheer me,
He Whose Name is Counselor and Power;
The protection of His child and treasure
Is a charge that on Himself He laid;
“As thy days, thy strength shall be in measure,”
This the pledge to me He made.

Help me then in every tribulation
So to trust Thy promises, O Lord,
That I lose not faith’s sweet consolation
Offered me within Thy holy Word.
Help me, Lord, when toil and trouble meeting,
Ever to take, as from a father’s hand,
One by one, the days, the moments fleeting,
Till I reach the promised land.

Asahel Nettleton on Divine Election

I came across this at the Reformation Theolgoy blog. It's so good I wanted to post the whole thing right here. But I think I'll just link to it instead. It's short--check it out. You'll be glad you did!

Practical Calvinism

Dr. D. Clair Davis gives some humorous yet insightful answers to the question, "What's so good about being a Calvinist?" Here's part of his answer as to just how practical these "lofty" doctrines of grace really are:

"Think through the basics. Jesus died for you personally (Personal Atonement). He loves you, not what he can get out of you (Unconditional Election). He pours out his love on every bit of you, not just on what you think is your sweeter and nicer side (Total Depravity). His love is stronger than all your doubt and foolishness and fear put together (Irresistible Grace). He keeps on loving you, all the way through to the end (Perseverance of the Saints). That’s the Five Points of your Father’s love!"

Be sure to read the entire thing.

Reading

Al Mohler sums up his post about books this way:

"Do our own young people read books? Do they know the pleasures of the solitary reading of a life-changing page? Have they ever lost themselves in a story, framed by their own imaginations rather than by digital images? Have they ever marked up a page, urgently engaged in a debate with the author? Can they even think of a book that has changed the way they see the world . . . or the Christian faith? If not, why not?"

Good questions!

My Theology...sort of

You scored as Karl Barth. The daddy of 20th Century theology. You perceive liberal theology to be a disaster and so you insist that the revelation of Christ, not human experience, should be the starting point for all theology. Karl Barth 87% Anselm 87% Martin Luther 73% Jonathan Edwards 73% John Calvin 67% Friedrich Schleiermacher 60% Charles Finney 33% Jürgen Moltmann 20% Augustine 20% Paul Tillich 7% Which theologian are you? created with QuizFarm.com

Keller on Repentance

Justin Buzzard posted this amazing quote on the Buzzard Blog today:

"In Christian repentance we do not 'take our sins' to Mt. Sinai, but to Mt. Calvary. Sinai represents only the law of God, and makes us fear God will reject us. But Calvary represents both the law of God and his commitment to save us no matter what--even if his Son has to fulfill and pay our debt to the law. 'Going to Sinai' with our sins means we use the painful fear of rejection to motivate us to change. 'Going to Calvary' with our sins means we use gratitude for his love to motivate us to change. The free love of Christ means that in disobedience, you have not just broken the rules, but spurned the One who lost his Father rather than lose you." --Tim Keller

What's an RSS Feed?

You may have seen this symbol somewhere on the web. Then again, maybe not. So what is it, and why does it matter?

I never had much use for RSS feeds until I started using the Netvibes homepage (see post below). RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication" and is a way of syndicating material like news stories or blog posts.

Here's the kicker: I don't understand the nitty-gritty details of RSS or the difference between RSS and XML. I've done some reading on how it works and how it came to be, but I still don't get it. The good news is that it doesn't matte! I use RSS feeds like crazy and have found them immensely helpful. That's why I'm writing this post. I think if you're online much at all or if you visit news sites and blogs, then you will find RSS feeds very useful.

So what do you need to do to start benefitting from RSS feeds? On a news site like foxnews.com or cnn.com or on a blogs site like this one you can look for either the orange symbol you see in this post or the words "RSS Feed" or "Atom Feed" or something like that. For example, if you scroll to the bottom of this blog page, you'll see "Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)." That's what you would click on to subscribe to the Anwoth feed. Now, if you're using the Firefox browser you'll see the little orange symbol in the address bar like this:

If you're using Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7, you'll see the orange symbol on the little toolbar at the top right like this:

In either case, click the symbol and see what happens. For me it's been helpful for seeing what's going on at numerous blogs all at once. At a glance I can see whether there are any posts I want to read.

Okay, so I hope that helps some of you. If you have more questions on how it works, let me know and I'll see if I can help. If you don't want to use it after all, so be it. Either way, keep reading the blog posts here and at other good blogs (see my list).

Netvibes--the Coolest Homepage Ever!

I ran across a link to Netvibes at challies.com. I checked it out and found the best free homepage ever! And best of all...it's free. You can put as many tabs (different pages) as you want, and you can customize those pages. For example, I have a page that contains RSS feeds from all my favorite blogs. On my homepage I have RSS feeds from Fox news, I get a daily Garfield comic, I get unread messages from my gmail account and a local weather forecast. What more could you ask for? Here's a picture of my homepage:

On the left-hand side is the bar that lets me add content. That bar can be closed to give me even more room on my page.

At the top of the page is a search box to search my Netvibes pages (it also includes a nifty filtering option for my searches). Below that you can see my two current tabs: "General" and "Blogs." Under that you see my RSS feed of National News from Fox News. I move my mouse over a headline and the first part of the story pops up.

Give it a shot. You'll love it!

My Last Semester!

Yes, that's right this will be my LAST SEMESTER, Lord willing! I didn't think I would be this excited about graduating, but as it turns out, it's one of the most exciting things I've ever had to look forward to. Here's my schedule this semester:

Wednesdays, 7:25-8:55 -- NT Greek Exegesis (The Synoptic Gospels)
Thursdays, 7:25-8:55 -- Chapel
Thursdays, 9:00-12:05 -- Apologetics
Thursdays, 12:10-1:40 -- MDiv Seminar
Fridays, 7:25-8:55 -- NT Greek Exegesis (The Synoptic Gospels)
Fridays, 12:10-1:40 -- MDiv Seminar

It looks like a lot, but it's actually only 3 classes. I'm also taking a correspondence course from RTS. Please pray for me and my other friends who are also graduating this semester.

Two Sermons

I recently had the privilege of speaking to our church family from 1 Corinthians 1. Here are the two messages I preached:

1. Becoming a Gospel-Oriented Church (1 Cor 1:1-17).

2. Understanding the Gospel (1 Cor 1:17-31).